Silverlight on Chrome is Gone
The Chrome web browser has now dropped support for the Silverlight plug-in as of Chrome version 45, as expected. Chrome v45 has been released and for many people the upgrade to the new version is automatic. Chrome users who play a jigsaw puzzle at Jigsaw Explorer are now automatically directed to our new HTML5 puzzle player which does not require the Silverlight plug-in (or any other plug-in).
Missing Features
You will notice the new HTML5 puzzle player looks a little different than the old Silverlight player, and it is missing a number of features that were available in the Silverlight player. We are working very hard to add the missing features to the new HTML5 player and we expect most of those features to be in place by the end of September.
Saving Puzzles
Perhaps the biggest difference between the new player and the old Silverlight player is the way puzzles are saved: In the old player you had to explicitly click “Save” whenever you wanted to save your progress on a puzzle. You would then return later, click “Open”, select the saved puzzle file, and continue your puzzle. In contrast, the new player automatically saves your puzzle progress as you play, so no explicit “Save” is required. You can leave a puzzle at any time and then return later. When you return to a puzzle you didn’t finish earlier the new HTML5 player will automatically load your saved progress so you can continue the puzzle where you left off. The new player will remember up to 10 puzzles-in-progress at once.
Due to security restrictions in web browsers, it is not possible to explicitly save puzzle progress to a file in the HTML5 player the way you could in the Silverlight player. But we think the automatic save capability will be better in most respects, and we will be further enhancing the program to allow you to better manage your puzzles-in-progress.
Silverlight Puzzle Files
The new HTML5 puzzle player can not yet open puzzle files saved with the old Silverlight puzzle player, but that capability will be present soon (This feature is now available). You will be able to open saved files by clicking the Menu button on the new player’s toolbar and then clicking the button for browsing images. The image browse button is mainly for playing images from your local drive as jigsaw puzzles, but it will soon be able to open your saved Silverlight puzzle files as well.
More to Come
We are sorry for any confusion concerning the switch from the old Silverlight puzzle player to the new HTML5 puzzle player, but we had no choice in switching to HTML5 since Chrome made the decision to drop support for Silverlight. We are glad we at least managed to have a basic, functioning HTML5 player in place by the time Chrome dropped Silverlight support. We are working hard to add more features to the HTML5 player and we plan to make it even better than the Silverlight player. We hope you will enjoy the result!
The HTML5 player is new so you may encounter an occasional bug. If that happens then let us know and we”ll try to get it fixed.
